COMPUTING THE MEAN,

VARIANCE AND STANDARD DEVIATION

OF A DISCRETE PROBABILITY DISTRIBUTION
Mean In this lesson, you will learn how to compute and
Variance interpret the mean and variance of a discrete

Standard probability distribution.

Deviation
 Formula of the Mean of the Probability Distribution
The mean of a random variable with a discrete probability
distribution is:
μ = X1 • P (X1 ) + X2 • P (X2 ) + X3 • P (X3 ) + …, + Xn • P (Xn )
or μ = Σ X • P(X)

Mean Where:

X1 , X 2 , X3 . . . , Xn are the values of the random variable X;

and
P(X1 ), P(X2 ), P(X3 ), . . . , P(Xn ) are the corresponding
probabilities.
 Getting the Mean for Grocery Items

The probabilities that a customer will buy 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5

3 1 1 2 3
items in a grocery store are , , , , and respectively.
10 10 10 10 10

What is the average number of items that a customer will buy?

Step 1. Construct the probability distribution for the random
variable X representing the number of the items that a
customer will buy.

Number of Items X Probability P(X)

𝟑
1 𝟏𝟎
1
2 𝟏𝟎
1
3 𝟏𝟎
2
4 𝟏𝟎
𝟑
5 𝟏𝟎
Step 2. Multiply the value of the random variable X by the
corresponding probability.

Number of Items Probability

X • P(X)
X P(X)
𝟑 𝟑
1 𝟏𝟎 𝟏𝟎
1 𝟐
2 𝟏𝟎
𝟏𝟎
1 𝟑
3 𝟏𝟎
𝟏𝟎
2 𝟖
4 𝟏𝟎 𝟏𝟎
𝟑 𝟏𝟓
5
𝟏𝟎 𝟏𝟎
 Step 3. Add the results obtained in step 2.

a
d
d

So, the mean of the Σ X•P(X) = 3.1

probability distribution is 3.1.
This implies that the average
number of items that the
customer will buy is 3.1.
 The mean is the average number of items that a costumer will buy.
So, the average number of items that a costumer will buy is 3.1.

Although an item will never show a number, which is 3.1, this

implies that the theoretical mean would be 3.1.
 VARIANCE
AND
STANDARD
DEVIATION
Steps in finding the variance and standard deviation.

1 2 3 4 5
Find the mean of Multiply the square Get the sum Subtract the mean Get the square root
the probability of the values of the obtained in step 2. from the results obtained in Step 4
distribution. random variable X obtained in Step 3 (to get the standard
by its corresponding (to get the variance). deviation).
probability.
𝜎 2 = ෍ 𝑋 2 ∙ 𝑃 𝑋 − 𝜇2 𝜎= ෍ 𝑋 2 ∙ 𝑃 𝑋 − 𝜇2
 Focus
Continuation…
Number of
P(X) 𝐗 ∙ 𝐏(𝐗) 𝐗 𝟐 ∙ 𝐏(𝐗)
Items (X)
3 3 3 𝟑
1 10 10
12 ∙ 10 = 𝟏𝟎
1 2 1 4
2 10 10
22 ∙ 10 = 𝟏𝟎
1 3 1 9
3 10 10
32 ∙ 10 = 𝟏𝟎
2 8 2 32
4 10 10
42 ∙ 10 = 𝟏𝟎
3 15 3 75
5 10 10
52 ∙ 10 = 𝟏𝟎

Total 1 3.1 12.3

Solving for Variance Solving for Standard Deviation

𝜎 2 = ෍ 𝑋 2 ∙ 𝑃 𝑋 − 𝜇2 𝜎= ෍ 𝑋 2 ∙ 𝑃 𝑋 − 𝜇2

𝜎 2 = 12.3 − 3.12 𝜎= 12.3 − 3.12

= 2.69 = 1.640121947
𝜎 2 = 2.69 𝜎 ≈ 1.64
Interpretation…
To better interpret how far members of the group are spread out we
will be getting the coefficient of variation. To solve, just divide sd
(1.64) and the mean (3.1). In this case the Coefficient of Variation is
equal to 0.53. Distributions with a coefficient of variation to be less
than 1 are low-variance, whereas those with a CV higher than 1 are
high variance.

Therefore, we can say that value of the data set is close to the mean
and the distance of the scores from the mean is 1.64 (sd).
End of Lesson 3